Muhammad Khan
April 18, 2014
Discussion # 9
Antigone

1. “I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed”.

The political heroism in Antigone's resistance is her refusal of state power. Antigone says no to all she finds vile, and in this sense she is more powerful than the ruler beholden to his throne. Despite all his trappings of power, Creon finds himself helpless, unable to act on his own. He wants not to execute Antigone but cannot help ordering her death. Having said yes to state power, he is circumscribed by his own kingship, by very the throne that makes him the master of the land. He has surrendered himself entirely to the state and knows his circumscription all too well. Unlike Antigone, he has completely ceded his desires to take upon the mantle of governance. Creon is rendered loathsome, terrified of what his office requires of him and yet unable to act otherwise.

“If Haemon reaches the point where he stops growing pale with fear when I grow pale, stops thinking that I must have been killed in an accident when I am five minutes late, stops feeling that he is alone on earth when I laugh and he doesn't know why—if he too has to learn to say yes to everything—why, no, then, no! I do not love Haemon”.

Antigone recants her love for Haemon toward the end of her confrontation with Creon. Creon has unmasked her brothers as treacherous gangsters, making her act and death march entirely gratuitous. Its political, moral, filial, and religious motivations appear entirely external. Thus Creon offers the dazed Antigone the promise of human happiness. This vision of human happiness provokes Antigone's final, fatal explosion. She refuses to moderate herself: she will have everything as beautiful as it was when she was a child or die. Anouilh underscores the infantile quality of this desire: Antigone's fiery love recalls the plight of a child who cannot handle the even momentary loss and separation of the beloved. Antigone insists on her desire in its primary form.

2. I think that Creon is more flawed than Antigone. Her cause is at least righteous. She wants to bury her brother so he can rest peacefully in the afterlife. She may have gone about it in a prideful way, but her cause is just. The burial of Polynieces does not have the same import to Creon. It is just his pride that keeps him from forgiving Antigone. He does not even pretend to try and understand her reasoning. He gives no thought to her or Polynieces as family. He gives no thought to the arguments of his son. He will not change his mind and he will not be told what to do by a woman. He had the power to be gracious but he did not use his power wisely and he paid for it with everything he held dear.

3. Antigone herself represents the highest ideals of human life; courage and respect for gods. Antigone first demonstrates feminist logic when she chooses to challenges a powerful male establishment personified by her uncle Creon, who is newly crowned as the King of Thebes, and it is usually challenged by whole city-state. She believed that the law of the gods was more important than the law of the King. Creon became angry that a woman questioned his sovereignty and commanded her to death even though she was the daughter of Jocasta, his sister.

4. Do Antigone and Creon learn something from their pain and suffering? How do their tragic flaws enhance this learning process?